Biography

Composer Sid Richardson (b. 1987) writes concert music that imbues modern idioms with emotional grit and wit. His work explores the intersections of music and literature, drawing inspiration from a wide swath of authors, poets, and playwrights. Richardson leverages pre-existing texts to create a metaphorical resonance with the source material in pieces that weave literary elements into formal, rhythmic, and harmonic structures. He is constantly on the lookout to explore new sound worlds, collaborations, and technologies with his music.

Richardson has collaborated with artists such as Alsarah & the Nubatones, Amarcord, Branford Marsalis, Bill Seaman, The Callithumpian Consort, Conrad Tao, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Emmanuel Music, Sinfonia Salt Lake, and yMusic. He has a predilection for violin music, and has been fortunate to work with a variety of violinists including Lilit Hartunian, Sarah Plum, Charlotte Munn-Wood, Sophia Szokolay, Misha Vayman, and Roseminna Watson. His recent commissions include works for Boston Musica Viva, Emmanuel Music, Tanglewood Music Center, and Transient Canvas.

In 2021, Richardson released his debut portrait album, Borne by a Wind, on New Focus Recordings. The record’s cornerstone features Red Wind, a genre-spanning collaboration with poet Nathaniel Mackey and a mixed chamber ensemble of New York-based musicians, and three other chamber works performed by pianist Conrad Tao, violinist Lilit Hartunian, and the Da Capo Chamber Players.

Born and based in Boston, Sid Richardson earned his PhD in the Department of Music at Duke University. He also holds degrees from Boston Conservatory and Tufts University. Sid has participated in artist residencies at Crosstown Arts, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and their satellite campus at Moulin à Nef in Auvillar, France. In 2017, The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him a Charles Ives Scholarship. He was the recipient of the 2018 Hermitage Prize from the Aspen Music Festival and School. In the summer of 2019, Richardson was the Elliott Carter Memorial Composition Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. Active as a music educator, he has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wellesley College, and is a member of the composition faculty at New England Conservatory of Music and the music faculty at Tufts University.